Welcome to the FAQ page of the Latinum Course. Have a good look around the site, there is much on offer here. Thousands of students across the world are currently using the Latinum Course Materials - on YouTube, or with the provided audio materials. I invite you to start listening, to become more fluent in Latin. Knowledge of the Roman language will give you an unbroken view across 2 300 years of European Civilisation. Climbing the mountain to reach the vantage point that is fluency, is worth the effort. The Latinum Course will hold your hand as you proceed, leading to fewer pitfalls along the way. We can't remove the effort required, but we can make the ascent more pleasant.

-London, January 2012

WHAT IS THE LATINUM COURSE?

The Latinum Course is an online multi-level and multi-media Latin course, that has been growing steadily since I started creating it in early 2007.

It is not the only, nor is it necessarily the best, method for learning Latin - however, I believe the general principle of learning through immersion to be more productive of expertise in a language, than by diverting one's efforts by learning the complex machinery of grammatical terminology - at least in the beginning. That is more 'learning ABOUT Latin' than 'Learning Latin'.

I also think one needs to 'fire on all cylinders' - to make as many neural connections as possible - this must involve reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Few formal Latin courses spend much time on the latter two, which, to my mind, are the most important of the four, especially for a beginner. Also, classroom based language courses simply cannot provide the intensive exposure needed, and the hours of tuition required, to master a language quickly.

Why did I make Latinum? I made the course, because I could find no modern-language type course with extensive audio materials for learning Classical Latin to an advanced level. I wanted to provide a course that students, or those with limited financial means, could access. I also wanted a course for myself, and couldn't find one.

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If you are a complete beginner, then the following materials will be useful:

1.The Adler Practical Grammar audio course 2. Swallowing the Dictionary, and Comenius' Vestibulum3. The Orbis Sensualium Pictus of Comenius (Audio in Latin and google book editions with various languages), and with a Latin-English audio version also available.4. The readers on Tar Heel Reader

If you are intermediate or advanced, Adler and Comenius will still be very useful. Even if you have formally studied Latin before, it is unlikely you will have developed the range of vocabulary dealt with by Comenius, or the flexibility of expression taught through Adler.

In addition, you might want to listen to the Fabulae Faciles, Dialogues, and read booklets on the Tarheel Reader site. To build your vocabulary, you might find it useful to listen to various Latin-English audio files, such as the historically important series of colloquia by Corderius, also available in Latin-English, and Latin only versions.

If you still are more advanced, then original texts in Latin may be of interest, along with Adler, and Comenius' Grammatical works. Adler also introduces many fine points of grammar not covered in standard modern textbooks.

About Adler's text:

The introductory textbook, by George Adler, teaches Latin via conversational, colloquial Latin. The Adler course will take you around 2 - 5 years to finish, maybe faster if you really work at it. It contains over 191 hours of audio.

The goal of the Latinum is to give you fluency in reading and listening to Latin, which will eventually lead to skill in writing and speaking.

The main textbook is George Adler's " A Practical Grammar of the Latin Language for Speaking and Writing Latin", one of the most comprehensive textbooks for learning Latin ever written - and possibly one of the most advanced and practical Latin textbooks ever written. The approach of this textbook is conversational Latin, so the bulk of the examples are short question and answer sequences. The goal is proficiency. As the book advances, a complete old-fashioned formal Latin Syntax using thousands of examples from Classical texts, is introduced.

The Latinum Course is founded on the idea that language learning needs to be fun, as stress free as possible, and IMMERSIVE. You need to eat, sleep and breathe a language in order to master it. Where possible, you need to use it and interact with it as much as you can.

Latinum gives you the tools to do this, offering the Adler Course, in addition to a wealth of vital subsidiary materials:* Comenius material* Fabulae Faciles - stories read in simple Latin.* Colloquia, or Latin Dialogues.* Elementary Illustrated Readers on Tarheelreader.org* Videos on YouTube* Swallowing the Dictionary - a unique audio resource* A Visual Vocabulary (on Schola in the Photolexicon, with over 3 000 images)HOW DO I USE THE COURSE?

This course demands an extensive amount of exposure - i.e. TIME - if you are as serious about being fluent in Latin as a Renaissance Scholar was, you will need 2 - 4 hours minimum per day, more if you can manage it, for a period of 3 - 5 years. True fluency may take as long as ten years to achieve.

Try to give yourself entire days of Latin, if you can manage it. Go to sleep with the Latin playing, and wake up with it. Walk with it. Wash the dishes with it. Go to the gym with it. You get the idea.....Learning Latin - or any language - to fluency - is not hard, but it takes dedication.

It is essentially up to you how you structure your learning - but what is important with language learnng, is quantity. You need to get as much Latin through your head every day as you can manage.

You may possibly also find it useful to engage in the following activities to be successful quickly using this course material.

Writing and transcription of the Latin in each chapter: Read each Latin sentence aloud. Write it down slowly and neatly, repeating each word aloud as you do this. Read the completed sentence out loud a second time.

Listening to the chapter's grammar section, both before and after you have done this.

Reading and listening to recorded books in Latin.

Grammatical study and practice.

Shadowing = listening to the recorded material and repeating it out loud as soon as you hear it - speaking 'over the voice' you are listening to. Doing this while walking or moving about is good. It will be hard to do in the beginning.

There is a grave problem approaching - a looming shortage of Latin teachers across the world, as Latin is increasing in popularity, while most Latin teachers are "of a certain age". Even now, many schools cannot find teachers, and the problem will only get worse. So, in 3 or 5 years time, if you complete this course with due diligence, and can open your mouth and speak Latin and write it, and read it, you should be able to land a job teaching Latin. Actually, the sad reality is that very few Latin teachers at secondary and tertiary level can actually speak Latin at all, most cannot write in the language either, so you'll probably have a higher level of fluency than just about any Latin teacher you encounter, if you complete this course. The Latinum podcast is in part trying to address this astonishing situation.

WHERE CAN I PURCHASE THE TEXTBOOK?

Simply google for " Adler A practical grammar of the Latin Language" and download the pdf.Latinum only uses out of copyright materials, so usually a text can be fond on google books, archive.org or europeana.eu

HOW ARE THE ADLER LESSONS STRUCTURED?

Each Adler lesson starts with a grammar discussion.(Part A) Then the examples are given in English and Latin. (Part B) They are repeated again in Latin only. (Part C) Finally, an episode with only questions in Latin, which you are expected to answer in any possible way, is given. The intention is to get you speaking in Latin. Not all episodes have this question episode yet. Most chapters have between 60 - 120 minutes of audio.

I AM NEW TO LATIN, WHERE DO I START?

Either begin with Comenius' Vestibulum, or with the Adler lessons, and begin from lesson one. Then work your way through the Adler lessons in order. You might want to read the chapter in the textbook, before you listen to the lesson for that chapter. In the first lessons I read very slowly, and greatly exaggerate the length of the long vowels, to help you learn correct quantity. Gradually, as the course progresses, my pace quickens.

I AM A MORE ADVANCED STUDENT, WHAT IS THERE FOR ME ON LATINUM?

If you are already a fluent reader, then you may find Adler of interest to get you up to speed on spoken Latin, and of more specific interest, our various readings from classical texts. If you are still 'hunting for the verb', the Adler course will cure of this, and give you a more natural way of accessing the language.

Even if you know a lot of Latin, Adler's discussions of Latin grammar are very comprehensive.

VOCABULARY LEARNING WITH LATINUM

Latinum offers a unique audio vocabulary learning resource, "Swallowing the Dictionary" on DVD with the potential to add tens of thousands of words to your vocabulary. These are based on Walter Ripman's little known, but very useful, Classified Latin Vocabulary.

We also offer vocab flashcard movies on our You Tube site - these are geared towards conversational Latin.

The vocabulary building files need to be listened to many times - they are quite stressful to listen to intially, and the material runs by, seemingly too fast to catch - however, each time you listen, you will grab more and more words, and, eventually, the files will begin to sound too slow. Great care is taken with quantity in reading these files, so you will learn correct quantity at the same time as you learn your vocabulary.

There are tens of thousands of words in our classified vocabulary, (i.e. words are grouped by topic) and even very advanced students can benefit from studying these sounds files. The Classified Vocabulary is geared towards Classical texts.

WHAT ABOUT PENSUM AND DICTATA?

Adler calls the chapters in the main textbook by the name of Pensum.The English exercises in the main textbook, which go along with each chapter, are simply called exercises.The Latin translations of these exercises, which are found in the smaller "Key to the Grammar", are called Dictata.

DOES ADLER COVER ENOUGH LATIN GRAMMAR?

Yes, Adler's textbook is very thorough, and covers a wide range of Latin Grammar.

WHAT PRONUNCIATION OF LATIN IS USED BY LATINUM?

Latinum uses the Restored Classical Pronunciation. This is a reconstruction of how Latin was spoken on the Palatine Hill, Rome, at the time of the Caesars. In the working class areas of Rome a different accent prevailed, and outside Rome, the rustic and provincial accents would have been different yet again. Regarding my pronunciation, the following points should be noted: I have made the decision to use the tonal accents.

I also frequently use the informal hicce, haecce, hocce, hujusce, etc when saying hic haec hoc and even hujus. I follow Allen's 'Vox Latina' by doubling the final consonant of hic and hoc before a word beginning with a vowel, e.g. hic est becomes hic cest. This is the correct classical pronunciation of hic [hicc], which has a short vowel.

I have also sometimes for aesthetic reasons chosen a slightly ante-classical pronunciation of cui, and render it according to its earlier spelling, quoi in lessons prior to lesson 51 in Adler. After lesson 51, you will find I have adopted the pronunciation recommended by Sturtevant, where the word is pronounced more or less as it is spelled, with a decending grave accent.

I AM TERRIBLE AT GRAMMAR, CAN I STILL LEARN LATIN?

Yes. Each lesson does have a grammar part, (Part A) but you can advance quite well by listening to part B and part C of each lesson, while avoiding the part A sections, which focus on grammar. You will never learn to speak Latin from learning grammar alone. Rather, you need to listen to Latin, and interact with it as much as possible, and try to write it. Participation in Schola, or a group like it, is very important if you are ever to truly command the language as a fluent speaker and writer.The original methodology of Ollendorff, which Adler uses, had almost no grammar, only lots and lots of sample sentences, which slowly built up grammatical knowledge intuitively. Adler added the grammar sections into the text, giving lots of illustrative examples. If you plan to approach the lessons in a 'grammar free' way, then you will need to become very familiar with the sample sentences.

If you are a primary school student, you might find the grammar parts too difficult - so just ignore them, and get on with learning the model sentences in part B and C of each Chapter. Once you notice that you have the language well and truly under your belt, so that it starts to feel natural to you, you should go back, and study the grammar sections.